Kenneth Arthur Muir was a twentieth-century literary scholar and author, prominent in the fields of Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 studies and English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre

English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...

. He served as King Alfred Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University from 1951 to 1974.

Muir edited volumes 19 through 33 of the Shakespeare Survey, and served as chairman of the International Shakespeare Association. He authored and edited a wide range of scholarly articles and books — primarily on Shakespeare and other Elizabethans, but also on various other subjects, including John Keats

John Keats

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...

, Jean Racine

Jean Racine

Jean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...

, and Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca , was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest...

. He edited modern texts of many classic plays of the English Renaissance, including Othello

Othello

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...

, King Lear

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...

, Macbeth

Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

, Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus...

, and Richard II

Richard II (play)

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...

. He also edited the collected poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt may refer to:* Thomas Wyatt , English poet* Thomas Wyatt the younger , rebel leader* Thomas Henry Wyatt , British architect...

.

Muir is vulnerable to confusion with other authors with very similar names: John Kenneth Muir

John Kenneth Muir

John Kenneth Muir is an American literary critic. He has written twenty-one reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular accent on the horror and science fiction genres....

, Kenneth B. Muir, Kenneth R. Muir, and Kenneth W. Muir.

Selected works of Kenneth Muir

• Elizabethan Lyrics: A Critical Anthology (1952).
• John Milton (1955).
• Jean Racine (1960).
• Shakespeare as Collaborator (1960).
• Last Periods of Shakespeare, Racine, Ibsen (1961).
• The Voyage to Illyria (with Sean O'Loughlin, 1970).
• A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies (1971, with Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
  
  )
• The Sources of Shakespeare's Plays (1977).
• Shakespeare's Sonnets (1979).
• Shakespeare's Tragic Sequence (1979).
• Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto, (1981, with Michael J. B. Allen).

Arden edition (Thomson Learning)of Macbeth (1984) edited by K.Muir
Aspects of Macbeth,CUP(1977)edited by Kenneth Muir and Philip Edwards,
collection of critical essays on Macbeth published in Shakespeare Survey.
The Singularity of Shakespeare CUP(1977)by Kenneth Muir

See also

• Joseph Quincy Adams
  Joseph Quincy Adams
  Joseph Quincy Adams, Jr. was a prominent Shakespeare scholar and the first director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C....
  
  
• G. E. Bentley
  Gerald Eades Bentley
  Gerald Eades Bentley was an American academic and literary scholar, best remembered for his The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, published by Oxford University Press in seven volumes between 1941 and 1968...
  
  
• E. K. Chambers
  Edmund Kerchever Chambers
  Sir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
  
  
• R. W. Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers
  Raymond Wilson Chambers was a British literary scholar, author, and academic; throughout his career he was associated with University College London .-Life:...
  
  
• W. W. Greg
  Walter Wilson Greg
  Sir Walter Wilson Greg was one of the leading bibliographers and Shakespeare scholars of the 20th century....
  
  

• Andrew Gurr
  Andrew Gurr
  Andrew John Gurr is a contemporary literary scholar who specializes in William Shakespeare and English Renaissance theatre.-Life and work:...
  
  
• Alfred Harbage
  Alfred Harbage
  Alfred Bennett Harbage was an influential Shakespeare scholar of the mid-20th century. He was born in Philadelphia and received his undergraduate degree and doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He lectured on Shakespeare both there and at Columbia before becoming a professor at Harvard...
  
  
• Cyrus Hoy
  Cyrus Hoy
  Cyrus Hoy was a literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English at the University of Rochester...
  
  
• T. M. Parrott
  Thomas Marc Parrott
  Thomas Marc Parrott was a prominent twentieth-century American literary scholar, long a member of the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey....
  
  
• Alfred W. Pollard
  Alfred W. Pollard
  Alfred William Pollard was an English bibliographer, widely credited for bringing a higher level of scholarly rigor to the study of Shakespearean texts....
  
  

• Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum
  Samuel Schoenbaum was a leading 20th century Shakespearean biographer and scholar.Born in New York, Schoenbaum taught at Northwestern University from 1953 to 1975, serving for the last four years of this period as the Frank Bliss Snyder Professor of English Literature. He later taught at the City...
  
  
• E. M. Thompson
• Charles William Wallace
  Charles William Wallace
  Charles William Wallace was an American scholar and researcher, famed for his discoveries in the field of English Renaissance theatre.Wallace was born in Hopkins, Missouri to Thomas Dickay Wallace and Olive McEwen...
  
  
• John Dover Wilson